Murder at five finger light

by Sue Henry

  As expected, it was empty. So where the hell had the woman gone this time? Remembering her reaction to the dead man, she doubted that Karen would go anywhere near him and would instead probably stay somewhere on this north end. Maybe she had gone downstairs to be with Curt and Don, who were obviously awake. It was worth a look.

  Heading for the stairway that led to the lower platform, she heard a voice and stopped halfway down to listen, but heard only silence for a moment or two.

  There was a sudden, half-familiar-sounding clank, as if someone had set down something quite heavy, a metal tool or piece of equipment, and the voice continued, moving away from her now.

  Once again she started quietly down the stairs, listening as she went, her running shoes making almost no sound on the cement steps.

  Whoever was speaking turned and came toward her like a walking shadow in the dark and she realized that it was Curt’s voice she was hearing. As if he were holding a low-toned conversation with someone, there were pauses between his sentences. But she could not determine what he was saying, and even listening intently she could not hear a response in those pauses. Maybe Don was answering from inside the basement, out of audible range. But who was Curt talking to?

  As he approached some of his words became audible.

  “. . . told you. Yesterday morning . . . take care of . . . the tank.”

  As he neared the stairs Jessie caught a whole sentence or two.

  “Yes—all four of them—the two couples. I’m going back for the others now.”

  What the hell was he talking about?

  As he came closer, Jessie, astonished and confused by what she had heard, knew there was no time to figure it out, or to go back up the stairs without revealing her presence. She flattened herself into the deep shadow of the wall and stood still, scarcely breathing, expecting him to round the corner and confront her at any second. But he unexpectedly turned back and walked away again, his conversation fading into indistinct mutters with a few discernable words.

  “. . . the musher woman, and . . . Yeah . . . her too . . .”

  Holding her position like a statue against the wall she immediately realized two disturbing things from what she had just heard. He was talking to someone on a cell phone, and she had to be the “musher woman” to whom he had referred.

  Turning, she went swiftly and silently, two at a time, back up the stairs, started to go into the lighthouse, but hesitated, then altered that intention. His words lingered unpleasantly in her memory, calling to mind a dead man on the other end of the island that someone had “taken care of.” Maybe it hadn’t been Karen, as she had suspected. And where was the once again missing Karen? Had Curt “taken care of” her too? Who else? He had mentioned two couples. That had to be Don and Sandra, Laurie and Jim—the only couples in the group. What had he done with them?

  It all spun confusingly in her mind. But one thing she did know for certain. Avoiding him was the most important thing she could do at the moment.

  The lighthouse was a box of walls within which she did not want to be trapped. If he came up the outside stairs behind her he would block the kitchen door, leaving only the interior stair to the basement for escape. If he elected to use the interior stair from the basement to the hallway, she might be able to get out the kitchen door, but only if she were not in the bedroom beyond it where Whitney was sleeping, totally unprepared for confrontation and needing to be warned. Could she get in and out fast enough to wake and alert her? It was probably not worth trying, knowing she would wake groggily and want some kind of explanation that would take too much precious time given the situation.

  And there was Aaron, who must be asleep and unknowing. There was no chance she was going up that narrow winding stairway in the tower—an absolute trap with no possible exit.

  One thing she could do. Stepping quickly into the kitchen, listening closely for any sound that would warn her of anyone’s approach, she opened the freezer and felt around for the handgun Jim had found in Karen’s suitcase. Hard, cold packages of meat and vegetables were all that met her searching fingers. The handgun was gone.

  The scuff and sound of feet coming up the interior staircase decided her next move. Closing the freezer lid quietly, she slipped back out into the dark through the kitchen door she had left open, taking care to shut it as soundlessly as possible behind her.

  Outside it was, as before, somewhat lighter, but not by much.

  If he was coming up the interior stairs, she could use the outside ones. Quickly, quietly, she went down them to the concrete platform and across it past the basement doors, one of them half open to darkness inside. Between the lighthouse and the carpenter shop, in the dim reflection of starlight on water and from the overhead beacon she could make out the end of the wooden steps that led up to the trail through the woods.

  Glad she had been able to escape, but concerned about the people she had left behind, she went quickly to the steps and quietly up them to the trail. Hurrying along it in the dark, she stumbled twice over the uneven ground—once falling to her knees. In the shelter of the trees, it was so black she couldn’t even make out the trail. Not knowing if she was far enough away from the lighthouse to be out of sight, she risked taking out the small flashlight and directed its beam at the ground, filtering it through her fingers. Speed at this point might be more important than secrecy, and there was a fifty-fifty chance she wouldn’t be the object of a singular search. She went hurriedly on, looking for some way off the path, somewhere to hide and watch.

  As she trotted south she remembered another fearful time in the dark woods of an island. Then it had been an island in Kachemak Bay, where she had been trapped with a stalker and an old man who had drowned while trying to escape by boat in the violence of an October storm. She recalled the sickening terror of being hunted like an animal and knowing that she might not make it through the ordeal. But she had, thanks to her own determination and abilities, and Alex and his pilot friend, Caswell. This was different. Alex wasn’t likely to show up here. He was not on the trail of a stalker as he had been back then, but at home thinking she was fine and just having the cell phone problems she had warned him were possible reasons why he might not hear from her and couldn’t reach her.

  And Curt evidently had her cell phone, or one of his own, and was using it. Anger burned in her, as she wondered exactly what he had meant about “taking care” of people.

  About a third of the way along the trail she stopped, turned out the light and stood looking back toward the lighthouse, listening intently, hoping to hear or see if anyone was following. She saw nothing but the inky blackness, and there was nothing to hear but the waves of the outgoing tide lapping gently against unseen rocks to the east, the soft rustle of a breeze through the brush around her, and its whisper in the trees overhead. As far as she could tell, no one had seen her go or followed her.

  Satisfied, she took a deep breath, turned the flashlight back on, and almost cried out in shock at the face that appeared in its light directly in front of her, waiting with a leer of anticipation for her to discover it. Staggering back, she almost dropped the light in the trail, but recovered and held onto it, focusing its beam on the face she had seen.

  The face did not move or change expression and she realized in seconds that the object that had startled her was inanimate—the mask on the tree that Whitney had pointed out the previous morning. It was now no matter for light amusement.

  As she stood staring at it, heart thumping, she gasped again and whirled at a rustle in the brush beside her as some small animal scurried away in the dark, probably as startled as she was.

  Turning, she started on along the trail, shivering as the surge of adrenaline left her system. Beneath her jacket she wore only the large T-shirt she had slept in, and now she wished it were a sweater. It was cold and damp as well as dark and the trail seemed more uneven in the night.

  Passing the hole that fell deeply away at one side of the track, she stepped carefully around
it and continued until the trail turned right on its way up to the rocky point where they had watched the eagle fishing. Just past the turn she sat down on the huge twisted trunk of a fallen tree, switched off the light, and allowed herself time to rest and think. There was a corpse under a tarp not far away and she had no intention of joining his chill indifference to the night if she could help it.

  There were stars twinkling through the branches of the trees, but they wouldn’t last long. It would be morning, with its revealing light, in—how many hours? She assumed it must be two or three o’clock, but had left her watch back in the bedroom with the rest of her things. Was there anywhere on the island she could hide well enough to avoid being found when it grew light?

  Five Finger was a very small island. Curt knew how many people were in the work crew and would know that one member of the group was missing, and who. As soon as the sun came up, if not sooner, he would likely be after her, searching the three acres carefully from end to end. So it would be wise to proceed with that in mind, wouldn’t it?

  Where was the rest of the crew? Had he taken them all to the basement—killed them? Why? Did it have anything to do with the cocaine she and Jim had examined on the cooler room floor? Then there was that person he was talking to on the cell phone. Who was it? Could Karen’s disappearance mean she was involved, or had he “taken care of” her with the rest? If not, where was she?

  Had anyone else escaped? Aaron? If they weren’t dead, could she be of any help to the ones that had not? All she had were questions—too many questions and very few answers. How could she find out what was going on and who was responsible without revealing herself as most likely the only wild card in the deck?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  IT SEEMED VERY STILL AS JESSIE SAT ON THE LOG AND wondered what to do next, but not being able to see in the dark seemed to sharpen her sense of hearing. She became aware of the light breeze sighing softly through the trees behind her. It set the grasses whispering together between her and the rocks where the fossils lay and those that Karen had climbed to see the sea lion and found a dead man instead. She could also hear the receding tide as it washed at the island’s pebbly shingle and remembered how that morning it had tirelessly swept away blood that stained the water with scarlet threads. Now as it came and went it tumbled loose stones that, partially submerged, knocked against each other with an almost musical sound.

  Slumping a little on the log, she sighed, trying to relax and let go some of the stress that had built through her escape.

  The breeze momentarily held its breath, but the rhythmic sea continued to create the pleasant harmony of stones that was almost a voice. Within that sound, her ears suddenly caught another rhythm that had nothing to do with stones or water. Very faint and from not far away there was a human note in the music. Someone just within hearing distance was very quietly sobbing.

  Jessie was instantly on her feet, poised and concentrating on what she had heard. The sound faded, stopped, and then softly returned between where she stood and the verge of the tide.

  Leaving her daypack behind the log on which she had been sitting, she crept forward, holding the flashlight covered with her fingers except for one narrow beam aimed on the ground at her feet. This was no time to stumble or give her presence away. Slowly, carefully, she passed through the grasses, moving only when the breeze sighed through them, hesitating when it hesitated.

  When she was beyond them and could look out over the rocks that angled gently down into the tide, she froze and stood waiting, listening. The sobbing had ceased, but a rock clacked against another rock as someone moved to her left. Whoever it was had to be close to where they had left the dead man wrapped in his shroud of blue plastic.

  With no further attempt at silence, Jessie stepped quickly forward over the ridge of stone and aimed the full beam of her flashlight toward the enclosed body. It was no longer completely draped with blue weighted with stones. The face and upper half of the body lay exposed to the night, cold and silent. Kneeling beside it, tears streaming down her face as she turned blindly into the light, was Karen Emerson.

  As if she were frozen, she stared into the light in Jessie’s hand without moving, startled, but clearly not caring, or perhaps resigned to whoever was holding it.

  “What are you doing here, Karen?” Jessie demanded.

  The woman looked down at the man by her side, but said nothing, just shook her head and wiped at her face with one hand.

  Lowering the beam of light from Karen’s face, Jessie stepped forward to stand beside her.

  “What’s this about? Do you know this man?”

  Karen reached out to lay a hand protectively on the shoulder of the dead man.

  “He was my friend,” she said simply. “He helped me when I needed help.”

  “Why didn’t you say you knew him when we found him?” Before she stood up to answer, Karen pulled the blue tarp back up to cover the body and carefully replaced the stones that held it in place. Facing Jessie, she frowned and took her lower lip between her teeth in a long moment of assessment. There was a note of bitterness when she finally spoke.

  “You’re the one who said his name. Tim. But you didn’t say his last name, so I wasn’t sure it was the Tim I knew until I came back here to see for myself after you had all gone to sleep. It could have been someone else with the same first name, but it wasn’t. It is my friend. What I want to know is how you could have known him.”

  The accusation was tossed like a gauntlet that lay in the space between them, concerning something Jessie didn’t understand.

  “If you knew him,” she said slowly, thinking back, “why didn’t you recognize him on the plane from Juneau when he was sitting in the seat next to you?”

  “What?”

  “It was a short flight, but he was right beside you, sleeping.”

  But as she spoke she remembered how the hungover fisherman had used the long bill of his cap to cover his face and gone to sleep before Karen came aboard the plane. Then, when they had landed, before she had nudged him awake as promised, Karen had been on her feet in the aisle, so intent on getting off quickly that she had crowded in front of other passengers, never glancing back. She attempted to explain this only to be met with disdain and disbelief.

  “He couldn’t have been there. If he had been I would have recognized my own friend.”

  “Well, he was. And you clearly didn’t.”

  They stood staring at each other in the half-light of the flashlight Jessie now held pointed at the ground—both defensive, both unwilling to provide a way out of the impasse.

  Jessie suddenly realized they had been talking in normal voices that would carry in the stillness of the night. Anyone searching might hear them or see the glow of the light in her hand. Abruptly, she switched it off and lowered her voice almost to a whisper.

  “Hush! There’s something happening that I don’t like back at the lighthouse and we really don’t want to be heard talking. How long have you been out here?” she asked.

  “Why do you care?” Karen hissed back.

  “Did you see anyone when you came?”

  “Why would I?”

  Impatient with Karen’s belligerence, Jessie gave up, reached out to grip the woman’s shoulder and give her a shake.

  “Stop answering a question with a question. There are some nasty things going on—or do you already know that? Are you part of whatever’s going on with somebody on a cell phone? Did you know someone else would show up here before we came?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head, a motion Jessie found unconvincing, noticing the glance of fearful assessment Karen included with it.

  “What are you talking about?” the woman demanded, a familiar note of dread in her voice.

  “Curt’s got at least one of the cell phones—or one of his own. I overheard part of a conversation he was having with someone, probably off-island. Do you know who?”

  Karen’s body stiffened under her hand, but all
the censure and hostility had fled her voice to let fear flood into a moan. “Oh my God. It’s Joe. He’s coming here and he’ll find me.”

  As in the hotel room two days before, she went immediately into flight mode, pulling away and turning in confusion and panic, trying to settle on a direction in which to escape.

  “Wait. Wait! ” Jessie snapped just loud enough to be heard as she grabbed Karen’s arm. “Think first, run after. Remember?”

  Stones at the edge of the sand stopped rattling under Karen’s feet as she was forced to stand still.

  Seldom that Jessie recalled had she been confronted with anyone who made such a problem of herself at every turn. Exasperated, she heartily wished she had never had dinner with the woman to begin with—even more that she had kept her mouth shut and not invited her along to Five Finger Island. But she was not so much a concern as a complication to Jessie at the moment. What to do with her was the question. Left to her own devices she was likely, one way or another, to betray either or both of them to Curt.

  The tempting thought of tying Karen up somehow and hiding her in the brush flitted through her mind, but not seriously, for she had nothing with which to tie her and short of knocking her on the head with a rock there was no way to keep her quiet enough even if she had.

  “Look,” Jessie told her. “They know who we are and how many of us are here. Soon they’ll come hunting. Hiding is better, and quieter, than running. So we’ve got to find somewhere to hide and there can’t be many good places for one of us, let alone two, on an island this small. You got any ideas?”

  Karen shook her head mutely, but she had stopped trying to pull away and seemed to be listening, though still panicked.

  Jessie glanced around at the dark shapes of the stones and the trees beyond.

  Not here, she thought. It was too open.

  But he wouldn’t look in the open, would he? If he came—and she knew that if Karen was right and her stalker was involved, for whatever reason, he would come—he would focus his most intensive search in more promising places, those with concealment potential.